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There is a parable about holding a fistful of sand. I'm not sure exactly how it goes, but the moral was that the tighter you tried to hold on, the faster the sand spilled out.

I thought of something else in this context.

Sometimes, you hold on for so long that you forget why. You don't even realise your fist is clenched. When you do; when you eventually work up enough courage and open your hand, there will still be a few grains stuck in your palm. Those are regret, doubt, desire, sadness and... faint memories of the hope and possibility that made you pick up the sand in the first place.

The problem with sand of course is that you'll never successfully manage to dust off every grain.

It's the time of the season, as the song goes, when relatives residing in foreign parts realise that the cure for homesickness is affordable and arrive like a mob of vultures to a carcass party. How else can you reasonably explain the fact that five different people have flown in within a week and made the pilgrimage to my grandma's place.

That doughty lady is of course, delighted and exasperated in equal measure. While she loves visitors, particularly family, and is of an age when every day is a gift, she certainly does not possess the equanimity or energy to juggle their various dietary and behavioural idiosyncrasies with her usual finesse. However, she perseveres.

Last night, this entire crew of NRIs met up at my uncle's place. I happened to drop by on my way home, and was immediately pulled into the jamboree. I'm pretty certain most extended families are as noisy as mine when meeting & catching up, in some cases, after almost 20 years. Like me, you'd expec…